Surah Ki Jaisi Teri Chal

1. You amble like a cow

1.1.

You amble like a cow.
You have a glistening tale.
You are in the house, so find your food.
Don’t go elsewhere. [Pause]
You lick the hand-mill to eat the flour.
Where are you slipping off to with the mill rag?
Your eyes are fixed on the cooking pot;
Don’t, you’ll feel the stick or club across your back.
Says Kabir, You’ve fed well;
No more, lest a brick or stone should brain you.

This text is an English-language translation of the original version:
Original

This is a selection from the original text

Keywords

famine, food, hunger, natural dye, oral narrative, patachitra, scroll, starvation

Source text

Title: Surah Ki Jaisi Teri Chal

Author: Kabir

Editor(s): Ayesha Mukherjee

Publisher: University of Exeter

Publication date: 2021

Place of publication: Exeter

Digital edition

Original author(s): Kabir

Language: Braj Bhasha, English

Responsibility:

Texts collected by: Ayesha Mukherjee, Amlan Dasgupta, Azarmi Dukht Safavi

Texts transcribed by: Ayesha Mukherjee

Texts translated by: Ayesha Mukherjee

Texts encoded by: Shrutakirti Dutta

Encoding checking by: Charlotte Tupman

Genre: India > poetry

For more information about the project, contact Dr Ayesha Mukherjee at the University of Exeter.

Acknowledgements